1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a baling device to form bales of crop material.
A baling device is an agricultural unit to form bales of crop material. The baling device usually comprises an intake device to take up crop material from the ground and a bale forming device to form a bale from the crop material.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a bale of a desired size or density has been formed in the bale forming device, it has to be ejected from the bale forming device. Often the bale is covered by netting before ejection.
It takes a period of time to cover the bales in netting and to eject the bale from the bale forming device. Without further measures the intake of crop material has to be stopped during this period of time. In practice, this means that the vehicle pulling the baling device has be stopped to avoid that new crop material is introduced in the baling device. However, it is desirable to continuously take in crop material so that a continuous baling process is obtained.
It is known to provide a baling device which is capable of temporarily storing a quantity of crop material during netting and ejecting of a bale.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,900, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a baling device having a temporary storage for crop material. When no crop material can be introduced in the baling device, the crop material is temporarily stored in the temporary storage, until the baling device is ready to receive this crop material.
DE 37 34 850 which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a baling device having a device creating a temporary storage space by placing a separation element in the flow of crop material which holds the crop material until the bale forming device is ready to receive the crop material in the temporary storage.
In other baling devices, such as disclosed in DE 19606230, U.S. Pat. No. 4,667,592, and EP 1264532, which are all incorporated by reference in their entireties, it has been proposed to provide two baling chambers, one of which may be of smaller dimensions. During ejection of a bale from the second, larger baling chamber, formation of a bale may be started in the first baling chamber. After ejection of the finished bale from the second baling chamber, the new formed bale in the first baling chamber may be transferred from this smaller baling chamber to the second baling chamber. In the second baling chamber, formation of the bale continues until the bale has the desired dimension or density. When the bale has the desired dimension or density, the new bale may be ejected from the baling device.